December 04, 2008

A walk in the urban sprawl

I have the day off today and it's a lovely sunny day so I decided a walk was in order. I live in the suburbs but there aren't any really good parks for walking anywhere nearby so most of my tromping is done around the side streets. Which is always entertaining.

Some things noted on my walk today:

A bright red and black HB pencil jammed into the nature strip for no apparent reason.

A discarded mattress half curled like a cat basking in a puddle of sunshine.

A jack russell terrier with one black ear playing with his little boy.

The spicy summer smell of hot eucalyptus.

An abandoned shopping trolley sitting near a pedestrian crossing. I think it was just poised waiting for there to be no humans or cars so it could hit the button and make its dash across. Or maybe I've just read too much Pratchett.

The hundreds of colours in the bark of the gum trees lining the streets, everything from deep rust red to rosy pink and palest creamy green.

An army of ants scurrying up and down on of said gum trees. Maybe we're due another storm.

And now I'm listening to the outraged chirps of the birds out the front. I think the orange cat must be prowling around. I think they're safe. He might bag the odd mouse but I haven't seen him climb a tree for a LONG time.

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